Greenberg's diplomacy disguises battle for eyeballs with AFL

Todd Greenberg’s remark on Melbourne radio that Australia’s two dominant football codes weren’tat war, so much as having a mutual enemy in Netflix, makes me wonder whether the AFL chiefexecutive, Gillon McLachlan, reacted the same way as Metternich when told that Talleyrand haddied.

Not for a moment am I equating the rival chief executives with the two great 19th-century European statesmen, Metternich who was Chancellor of the Austrian Empire and Talleyrand, the French diplomat who survived Louis XVI, the French Revolution, Napoleon and the Restoration.

Big hit: The first match of the State of Origin series was, true to form, a blockbuster in terms of television viewership.Credit:Grant Trouville/NRL Photos

Greenberg, McLachlan and, for that matter FFA’s David Gallop and Rugby Australia’s Raelene Castle,do possess fierce political ambition and it’s unlikely any of them would object to media alliesadvocating their talents, particularly now that the job of Cricket Australia’s CEO is vacant.

But only one of them could be as crafty as Talleyrand, on whom Napoleon relied despite calling him“a shit in a silk stocking”.

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When given the news of Talleyrand’s death, Metternich said, “I wonder what he meant by that?”McLachlan may have equally pondered what Greenberg meant by his remark that the AFL and NRLwere not at war and, instead, had a mutual opponent in online streaming giant Netflix.

Statesman: Talleyrand.

After all, the two codes were on a war footing when the NRL scheduled the 2018 Origin series.Greenberg initially planned to stage the second match, a Sunday night fixture, at the MCG, ratherthan play the first game there, as occurred with last Wednesday’s night’s match.

The NRL couldn’t trust the AFL not to schedule blockbuster matches in Melbourne over the June 22-24 weekend, leading to the Sunday night Origin match. Instead, the second match will be played at Homebush and the NRL has made it a standalone fixture, with no club games over the weekend.

Greenberg’s comment on Melbourne radio does evoke Talleyrand, who said: “Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.”

The NRL has given the AFL a major hiding in TV ratings to the halfway mark of the 2018 competition, even before the four million who watched Origin I.

Oztam figures show that the cumulative Australian TV market has declined by 8.9 per cent this year and the fall in AFL ratings is even greater – a 13.9 per cent drop –while NRL ratings are flat at minus 0.6 per cent.

It’s probably true that Netflix, together with the Commonwealth Games and royal wedding, haveaffected Melbourne viewing habits more than Sydney, although the AFL points to a schedulingconundrum where poorly performing Carlton had a run of Friday night games.

If AFL and NRL games were only on free-to-air TV, this may be so. But consider the Fox figures for both codes this year.

The NRL has seven of the top 10 Fox programs of AFL/NRL for 2018, as well as six of the firstseven. The NRL has 16 of the top 20 AFL/NRL broadcasts for 2018.

Whereas both codes each had five of the top AFL/NRL programs for both 2017 and 2018(excluding finals), no AFL game from 2018 makes the top 20. The highest rated AFL 2018 Fox game, Collingwood versus Essendon with 321,162 viewers, is ranked 25th over the combined AFL/NRL broadcasts for 2017 and 2018.

Admittedly, it was also shown on FTA but its 2018 ranking of fourth for both codes demonstrate yet again how much AFL viewership has slipped in a year.

Ratings winner: The round 12 match between the Dragons and Penrith.Credit:AAP

FTA games in both codes are simulcast and Fox now has opposition from Netflix and thestreaming services it didn’t have a decade ago. But the NRL has held up well, with the No.1ranked AFL/NRL game this year – the round-12 Panthers versus Dragons match with 366,399viewers – the third-highest rating NRL match of the past five seasons. It sits below the stellar2016 Storm versus Sharks battle for the minor premiership (499,000) and behind around-one match between the Cowboys and Sharks in 2016 (372,000).

By blaming Netflix, perhaps Greenberg suspects the AFL’s real problem is the viewer trend towardsshorter programs, particularly if games are one sided.

We tend to follow the United States in many social habits and the viewership of NFL games (wherethe ball is in play one minute in every 17 minutes) is down nine per cent on the previous season.

Significantly, the average margin of victory has increased in the NFL. Similarly, many AFL games (100 minutes compared to NRL 80 minutes) are decided by the beginning of the fourth quarter, while the average margin of victory in the NRL is 12.7 after round 13, down from last year’s record low of 13.1 for the full season.